Levelling Up White Paper - Greater Manchester Chamber Response
Responding to the release of the Government’s long-delayed Levelling Up White Paper, Chris Fletcher, Policy Director at Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, said: “The battle cry to ‘Level Up’ the country played a significant part in ensuring victory for the Conservatives at the 2019 election but since then it has remained a slogan with very little substance behind it. With the release of the White Paper today it is a little clearer what this strategy means but many questions and gaps still remain.
“Amongst the many announcements, in what is a substantial document, the lack of new funding stands out. Some of the new 12 government missions, the key focal points for action, have been based on what has worked in parts of the country already, such as Mayoral Combined Authorities. But, without genuine devolved powers, a central government fully prepared to ‘let go’ of control and intervention, backed up by cash, these 12 targets will never be fully realised.
“There are some interesting new announcements around an upgraded devo deal for Greater Manchester and a brand new Innovation Accelerator and we await more details on what these actually are but most of the content feels very much like refined and rehashed versions of already announced policies repackaged under the label of ‘Levelling Up’.
“At a time when many businesses, employees and residents are facing significant challenges around price rises, jobs and the ongoing impact of Covid and Brexit it is vital that these proposals deliver, and quickly. We have already been let down significantly by the inappropriate and poor recommendations of the Integrated Rail Plan launched last year and hope that something more positive comes out from today’s announcement.
“As with all White Papers there are a lots of ideas for discussion and feedback and, over the next few days, we will be digging deeper into the content to identify where more needs doing to help businesses and communities across the city region, for it is just as important that we ‘level up’ across Greater Manchester as well as other areas of the UK.”